Hyundai Motor India today launched an initiative to spread awareness on road and traffic safety in the country in association with the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways.
The initiative -- Safe Move-Traffic Safety Campaign -- will promote the best practices of road and traffic safety habits among school children.
"Children are the future of a nation and 'Traffic Safety Campaign' is an effort to reach out to children to educate them with the best practices of traffic safety," Hyundai Motor India Ltd (HMIL) MD, Y K Koo told reporters here.
Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari termed the issue of road safety as "very important".
"In 2013, five lakh accidents took place, snuffing out lives of 1.5 lakh people. It's very unfortunate that because of these accidents, cost of road accidents stood at 55,000 crore and that is 3 per cent of GDP of the country," Gadkari said.
As part of the campaign, the Robocar Poli animation series with messages from Gadkari and HMIL brand ambassador Shah Rukh Khan will be aired on Hungama TV channel.
Along with the TV broadcast, special school contact and RWA programmes have also been planned across multiple cities in the country.
To start with, the company plans to initiate school and residents welfare association (RWA) contact programmes in five major cities -- Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and Ahmedabad.
On the initiative, Union Highways Secretary Vijay Chhibber said:" Such a CSR activity by the auto industry will go a long way in meeting the Indian commitment towards achieving the United Nations decadal goals for road safety.
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Elaborating on the road safety campaign, Shah Rukh Khan said: "It has to be a three-pronged strategy. You should have corporates, Hyundai has already taken the first step and I think perhaps a lot of other corporates may jump the wagon."
"Second part is infrastructure which the minister (Gadkari) was saying about and the third part is educating the kids. So all these three if they happen together and with the execution of this idea..It should be an all India campaign just like Pulse Polio drive or family planning drive. It should be a common platform. I think other companies should also jump in and take it forward.
